Vice President Joe Biden's speech in Iowa on Wednesday was more than a full-throated attack on Republican Mitt Romney's economic policies. It was also the latest indication that the Obama campaign intends to champion its manufacturing policies in battleground states in the Midwest, inviting voters, as Biden did Wednesday, to compare the president's program to what it casts as the likely Republican nominee's downplaying of manufacturing as a key part of America's economic recovery.

Biden pointedly quoted the Wall Street Journal, a newspaper rarely cited by Democrats, as stating, "Romney appeared to scoff, first in Detroit, then in Florida, at the notion of manufacturing as a job engine for the future." That, Biden said, sets up what he called the "choice in this election" between "our philosophy that believes manufacturing is central to our economy, and their philosophy that scoffs at it."

The Michigan primary will test one of the most common- but as yet unproven - assumptions in the Republican presidential race: the expectation that Rick Santorum will be a strong candidate for blue-collar voters.

From the moment Santorum emerged as a serious contender in Iowa, many analysts (present company included) have assumed he would run well among the growing ranks of non-college white voters in the Republican electorate. On a policy level, Santorum stresses his determination to rebuild the nation's manufacturing capacity and laments the decline of upward mobility for working-class Americans in language rare among Republicans. On a personal level, Santorum highlights his years growing up in Western Pennsylvania steel country, and his grandfather's experience as a miner; he also projects a regular-guy aura that contrasts with rival Mitt Romney's vast wealth.

Since the beginning of this presidential cycle, Iowa, the state with a seemingly unshakeable inferiority complex, has feared its relevance in the presidential nominating process could be compromised if any number of events happened to transpire:

-- If Iowa was leap-frogged on the primary calendar, it could lose its relevance as the nation's first nominating contest.

-- If Iowa crowned a candidate who spent too little time campaigning in the state, it could lose its relevance in the eyes of the media, which pumps money (and energy) into the state by pushing the narrative that Iowans favor candidates who invest time in the state.

-- If Iowa crowned a candidate who's too conservative, it could lose its relevance in the eyes of the eyes of the Republican establishment, which favors electability over ideology and has long been wary of the Hawkeye State's homogeneous, evangelical electorate.

-- If Iowa crowned a candidate who's too moderate, it could lose its relevance in the eyes of Iowans themselves, who take pride in coalescing around the candidacy of a conservative standard-bearer capable of challenging the establishment favorite.

-- If Iowa crowned a candidate who stood no shot of winning the White House, it would lose its relevance as a state that's, well, relevant.

Jay Carney could be excused for his incredulity at Wednesday's White House briefing. To his surprise, he found himself on the defensive amid suggestions that somehow President Obama should not be traveling to Florida on Thursday. The criticism is that because Republicans are about to descend on the state prior to the Jan. 31 primary, the Democratic president should somehow leave them free to attack him uncontested.

There must be something in the Iowa air that impels politicians to give off-key speeches after the votes have been cast in the caucuses. Eight years after Howard Dean committed political suicide by screaming out the names of states and four years after Hillary Clinton put so many oldsters on stage that she looked like she was taping an AARP commercial, the Republican candidates Tuesday night gave us so many fresh memories to cherish.

There was Ron Paul declaring, "I'm waiting for the day when we can say we're all Austrians now." The Texas congressman was referring to the Austrian school of economics and his favorite economist, Freidrich von Hayek. But television viewers could be excused if they wondered whether the rally would break into a rousing singing of "Edelweiss." And Paul wasn't finished with the strangeness. In a first in modern American politics, he welcomed to the stage an active-duty soldier wearing his camouflage uniform and critical of American foreign policy.

Corporal Jesse Thorsen, of West Des Moines, is only 28 years old so perhaps he could be excused for forgetting the Defense Department regulation hammered into all members of the Armed Forces that they may not "participate in partisan political... rallies" and "cannot appear at any kind of political forum in uniform." But Paul, himself a veteran, should have known better than to put Thorsen in a position where he could be disciplined by the Army.

A lighter - but also odd - touch was in Rep. Michele Bachmann's valedictory after her sixth place finish. She praised her husband, Marcus, but drew a wince from him when she disclosed that on the day before the caucuses "he was out buying doggie sunglasses for our dog Boomer."

The Obama re-election campaign is marking Iowa caucus day by releasing a video of candidate Obama on caucus night four years ago, when he pulled off his upset victory over Hillary Clinton. With the spotlight at its brightest, all eyes and TV cameras upon him, a very young-looking Barack Obama gave a substantive victory speech outlining what he wanted to do as president.

The 2-minute video, called "2008 Iowa Caucus Victory Speech: Promises Kept," consists of speech excerpts and captions explaining what Obama has accomplished in each area. Leaving aside for a moment the question of how this will play with a depressed nation, it's hard to argue with most of the specifics. Obama promised to end the Iraq war and he did; he promised to cut middle-class taxes and he did; he promised to reform the health care system and he did.

NEWTON, Iowa -- In a dramatic moment on Monday, Rick Santorum fought back tears and his wife Karen grew misty-eyed when a voter asked them about criticism of their 1996 decision to bring home a newborn who died soon after childbirth.

Santorum choked up as he described the family's decision to bring home their child Gabriel after the newborn died in the hospital. Noting that his wife worked as a neo-natal nurse, Santorum said: "It was so important ... for the family to recognize the life of that child and for the children to know they had a brother."

(RELATED: Gingrich: Romney's a Liar)

The exchange was prompted by a voter who said she had heard liberal Fox News commentator Alan Colmes criticize the decision to bring home the child. "To some who don't recognize the dignity of all human life, who see it as a blob of tissue ... this is somehow weird, recognizing the humanity of your son. Somehow weird, somehow odd and should be subject to ridicule."

Earlier, as Santorum spoke, his wife Karen was heard to say: "It's so inappropriate."

(RELATED: Forget Winning Iowa: It's Better to 'Exceed Expectations')

Santorum concluded his response by restating his commitment to pursue an anti-abortion agenda. "I will stand and fight," he said. "I will hope to be able to look into the eyes of the American public and say 'Be more welcoming, open up your heart to love more, to love all life."

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Two questions loom over the traveling political carnival that has encamped here awaiting the verdict of Iowa Republicans in their Tuesday caucuses. The first is obvious: Who will win the first-in-the nation contest? The second is attracting less attention but is ultimately more significant: Will the result change the overall dynamic of the GOP race?

For all of the sound and fury in Iowa this weekend, the very uncertainty surrounding the first question adds to the suspicion that the answer to the second could be: not much.

Iowa's impact is open to question this year not mostly because it is uniquely quirky -- though its quirks are part of the story -- but because it accurately reflects the basic trend that has governed the GOP race over the past year. Here, as nationally, Mitt Romney is performing solidly, if not spectacularly, with the party's most pragmatic and secular elements. None of his rivals, meanwhile, is convincingly consolidating the more ideological and religiously conservative components of the party most resistant to him.

Tears helped save Hillary Clinton's campaign in New Hampshire four years ago. Could they be Newt Gingrich's salvation in Iowa?

(RELATED: Video of Gingrich Tearing Up Below)

The former House speaker, in a statistical three-way tie for third place in the latest Iowa polls, is better known for incendiary ideas and rhetoric than displays of heartfelt emotion. But his tears flowed Friday at a "Moms Matter" event when moderator Frank Luntz asked him about his own mother.

A second poll underscores the opportunity that division on the right is creating for Mitt Romney in Iowa. In the NBC/Marist College Iowa survey released Friday, Romney continues to draw only modest support overall - but remains positioned to capture the state because the groups most skeptical of him are fragmenting.

Overall, the poll showed Romney leading with 23 percent, followed by Ron Paul with 21 percent, and then Rick Santorum (15 percent), Rick Perry (14 percent) and Newt Gingrich (13) all bunched closely together. That largely tracks the findings of the CNN/Time/ORC Iowa survey released earlier this week.

In the NBC/Marist poll, like the CNN/Time survey, Romney continues to draw meager support among the party's most ardent elements. The new survey shows him capture just 13 percent among both evangelical Christians and voters who describe themselves as strong tea party supporters.

What can you tell about candidates by the vehicles they ride?

It's crunch time in Iowa and four of the six Republicans competing there are using buses as rolling ads for their campaigns. The newly energized Rick Santorum travels in a Dodge Ram pickup, possibly out of fiscal prudence. Ron Paul, whose campaign is well financed, does not have a bus - maybe because he rarely does the usual thing, or perhaps to avoid the commotion his fervent supporters would create wherever the bus went.

(PICTURES: See Their Buses)

Michele Bachmann's bus simply says "Michele Bachmann for President." Mitt Romney and Rick Perry are conveying their core messages in pithy shorthand. "Conservative Businessman Leader" says Romney's bus. "Faith Jobs Freedom" says Perry's.

Gingrich's bus also has a message: "Rebuilding the America We Love." That is not, however, the most prominent feature of the bus ridden by the former House speaker. It's a huge painting of his face.

Insert joke or pop psychology analysis here.

The Republican bubble has finally lifted Rick Santorum, at least to third place in one state.

For a while it looked like he'd be the only GOP presidential candidate in Iowa to miss out on his personal rise-and-fall saga. Now comes a CNN poll showing Santorum with 16 percent of the vote in Iowa - 2 points higher than a rapidly fading Newt Gingrich.

The comparison with a CNN poll earlier this month is striking. 

The latest CNN/Time/ORC surveys released this afternoon for New Hampshire, and especially Iowa, show that on the eve of the first actual voting, the GOP race is reverting to the pattern that has defined it for most of this year: the party's more pragmatic and secular circles are consolidating around Mitt Romney more than the GOP's more ideological and evangelical wings are consolidating around any single alternative to him.

That pattern isn't enough to place Romney in a commanding position - but it does offer him the possibility of a plurality advantage in a fragmented field. The surveys provide a snapshot of the nightmare for the conservative activists most resistant to the former Massachusetts governor: it raises the possibility that he could steamroll to the nomination without ever attracting majority support in the party because the ideological voters most resistant to him fail to ever coalesce behind a single alternative.

These dynamics are most apparent in the results of the new survey in Iowa, which polled 452 GOP likely caucus participants from December 21-24 and December 26-27. Overall the survey shows Romney now leading with 25 percent, followed by Ron Paul with 22 percent; Rick Santorum has surged into third place with 16 percent, followed by Newt Gingrich with just 14 percent. In the most recent CNN/Time/ORC poll from early December, Gingrich led with 33 percent, followed by Romney at 20 percent and Paul at 17 percent.

"Iowans need to decide whether they want to keep their first in the nation role in presidential politics where candidates spend time and effort traveling to the 99 counties...'' he said in an e-mail. "Or are they going to reward the northeastern establishment's candidate who has spent the least amount of time in Iowa and the most on false advertising? The later would lead future candidates to abandon grassroots campaigning in the Hawkeye state and simply run negative ads instead.''

Newt Gingrich has finally found a politician he considers even worse than the president he calls socialist, anti-colonialist and radical. That would be his fellow Republican Ron Paul.

"I think Barack Obama is very destructive to the future of the United States. I think Ron Paul's views are totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American," Gingrich said Tuesday in a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer.

Could he vote for Paul? "No." If it came down to Paul vs. Obama? "You'd have a very hard choice at that point."

A bus tour is a great way to experience the under-appreciated glories of Iowa. (Seriously folks, the state is beautiful). It's also a valuable tool in a place that prizes personalized retail campaigning and hasn't seen all that much of it this year - especially from these two leading GOP presidential candidates.

Romney has been tending to his firewall in New Hampshire and trying to seem like he's not working too hard in Iowa lest he be embarrassed on caucus night. Gingrich has played the VIP celeb, counting mainly on debates to make him a contender.

That's changing this week in the final stretch. Romney gives a speech Tuesday night in Davenport and launches a three-day bus tour the next morning.  Gingrich and his wife Callista will be riding a bus for the duration. Their "Jobs and Prosperity" tour starts Tuesday with 11 stops in its first three days. 

That's small potatoes next to the 10 stops Michele Bachmann has scheduled for Tuesday alone. Bus tours have been a staple for Bachmann as well Rick Santorum, Rick Perry and Ron Paul - the other candidates competing hard in Iowa. 

Polling in the unsettled race suggests Paul, Romney or Gingrich could win it. Bachmann and Santorum, short on money, are looking for a better-than-expected finish to keep them afloat. If Perry makes a surprise show of strength, he could re-emerge as the chief alternative to Romney.

Adam Smith of the Tampa Bay Times pointed out this week that some 370,000 Florida Republicans already have requested absentee ballots for that state's Jan. 31 primary -- more than all the Republicans who voted in the 2008 Iowa and New Hampshire contests combined.

Still, the snowball effect of doing well in Iowa and New Hampshire cannot be ignored. Thus the bus tours, the ads, the descending of the national media. 

The most accurate indicator of how candidates will fare Jan. 3 in Iowa is the Des Moines Register poll conducted by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines. In the final days of 2007, it was the only poll to pick up on Barack Obama's growing lead over Hillary Clinton, due to his success at bringing new voters into the arcane caucus process.

The caucuses that year were also held Jan. 3 and the final poll was released Dec. 31 based on interviews conducted Dec. 27-30. Obama led Clinton 32 percent to 25 percent, a margin almost identical to his 8-percentage-point victory over Clinton and John Edwards a few days later.

The Register won't disclose when it is in the field this year. But judging by the 2007 time frame, interviewers will be talking to Iowa Republicans throughout this week of intensified candidate activity, advertising and press coverage.

Did Paul peak too soon? Did Romney and Gingrich wait too long to make a full-court press, or are they coming on strong just in time? The Register poll will be our best clue to what is likely to happen next week when Iowa Republicans cast the first votes of the primary season.

If Iowa voters changed channels a few minutes into Thursday night's Republican presidential debate, they would have taken away the impression of a gracious Newt Gingrich wishing them "a very joyous Christmas." But anyone who stuck around longer would have seen the Gingrich who makes many Republicans quake at the idea of him as their nominee.

"I sometimes get accused of using language that's too strong, so I've been standing here editing. I'm very concerned about not appearing to be zany," the former House speaker said, in a sly reference to Mitt Romney's characterization of him as unsuited to the presidency.

Whatever your definitions of strong and zany, it's doubtful that Gingrich succeeded. In fact at times during the Fox News debate in Sioux City, Iowa, he made libertarian maverick Ron Paul sound like a sober upholder of the status quo.

The exchange that summed up all of Gingrich's strengths with the GOP base, and potential weaknesses in a general election, came over his plans for the courts.

AMES, Iowa -- Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul told hundreds of Iowa State students on Wednesday night that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, there was "glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq."

He said the Bush administration, driven by the beat of "war drums,'' was wrong to bomb Iraq because it did not orchestrate the attacks in 2001.

The crowd of roughly 1,000 people didn't react. This National Journal reporter posted Paul's comment on Twitter, leading Bush's former press secretary, Ari Fleischer, to respond: "The man is nuts.''

This is not the first time the Texas congressman has drawn flak for his views of the attacks. He has previously said U.S. military intervention in the Middle East was partly to blame, leading rival Rick Santorum to call him "irresponsible'' in a nationally televised debate in September. Paul drew boos from the audience when he responded.

The new CNN/Time/ORC polls out today for the first four states on the Republican calendar underscore the breadth of Newt Gingrich's rise - and the extent of the threat confronting the erstwhile front-runner Mitt Romney.

In each of the states except New Hampshire, Gingrich is consolidating the voters that have long been the most skeptical of Romney, while dividing those that had been most open to the former Massachusetts governor. That's a formula for success - if the former speaker can maintain it, admittedly a big question.

(RELATED: Gingrich Leads in Three of Four New Early-State Polls)

Gingrich is now succeeding among both sides of the party - dominating among the vanguard half that identifies with the tea party movement, and holding his own with the less ideological half that does not. What's more, the evidence from these polls suggests that along each track, the voters most skeptical of Romney are moving to unite behind Gingrich, at least for now. In particular, among the groups most dubious of Romney, Gingrich is now attracting much larger shares of the vote than any single candidate did in surveys earlier this fall.

In all four states, Gingrich now leads Romney among GOP primary voters who identify with the tea party movement. Gingrich's share of the vote among tea party supporters has increased as if launched from a rocket: since the last round of CNN/Time/ORC polls in late October he's up from 13 percent with them in Iowa to 40; in New Hampshire he's jumped from 6 to 37; in South Carolina from 11 to 53; and in Florida from 14 all the way to 62.

Larger version

What's the scariest news for Mitt Romney in the nearly mirror-image polls out today showing Newt Gingrich rocketing into the lead in Iowa, South Carolina and nationally?

The short answer: the breadth of Gingrich's support. In all three surveys, Gingrich is not only lapping Romney among the ideologically conservative and religiously devout voters who have resisted the former Massachusetts governor throughout the race; Gingrich is also running step for step (or ahead) with Romney among the less ideological, more secular, voters who have been Romney's base.

All of this is a big and ominous change for Romney. Earlier he had the luxury of watching the rivals to his right divide conservative voters while he made steady progress at consolidating the party's more managerial, less ideological wing. For a brief period in late summer, Texas Gov. Rick Perry threatened to reach across the divide - but his poor debate performances quickly deflated his standing with both groups. Now Gingrich, a much steadier (if still volatile) contender than Perry, is not only consolidating conservatives, but loosening Romney's hold on the more pragmatic and managerial components of the GOP coalition.

For an interesting study in contrasts, compare the television advertising broadcast by the leading Republican presidential candidates ads in Iowa.

The most distinctive quality of Newt Gingrich's first ad is its speed: slow motion. Going for the heartstrings, the spot showcases amber waves of grain to purple mountain majesties, joining the scores of homages to Ronald Reagan's beloved "It's morning again in America'' ad. Gingrich says, "Some people say the America we know and love is a thing of the past. I don't believe that. Because working together, I know we can rebuild America.'' Definitely an old-school ad by an old-school politician.

Mitt Romney's ad brands him from the first frame with what could be the title of the world's most boring memoir: "Mitt Romney: Conservative Businessman.'' In a voice over, Romney says, "I spent my life in the private sector. I've competed with companies around the world. I've learned something about how it is that economies grow." The tall, dark and handsome candidate is in every frame of the spot, sometimes in color, sometimes in black and white. His ad is the only one that features a picture of himself and his equally handsome wife, Ann.

More conventional wisdom that needs dispelling this primary season: The adulterous and thrice-married Newt Gingrich will be unable to attract evangelical voters in the first-in-the-nation caucus state.

While it's true that the former House speaker ultimately may fail to achieve the redemption he's seeking from Iowa evangelicals, it is also a fact that he has been quietly building bridges to that important segment of the caucus-going electorate for more than a year now. And, he not only built the bridges, he paid for them. And that could turn out to be Gingrich's greatest secret weapon against his rivals in the Republican caucus in January.

Gingrich's financial ties to Freddie Mac and the mortgage market, the ethanol industry and big health care have gotten lots of well-deserved scrutiny lately, but less well analyzed is a nonprofit he started called Renewing American Leadership (ReAL), which was devoted to issues the religious right cares about. The organization was financed by donations solicited by Gingrich and run by a trusted political operative, Rick Tyler, who later went to work for his presidential campaign, according to multiple news accounts. ReAL poured $150,000 into the successful campaign by Iowa social conservatives in 2010 to oust three Iowa Supreme Court judges, who were targeted after the high court struck down a state ban on same-sex marriage.

Many Iowa-based Republicans goaded Mitt Romney for months to treat their state not as an afterthought but a launch-pad for his presidential campaign. And the former Massachusetts governor, after wavering most of the fall, has finally acquiesced - sending mailers, opening new campaign offices and, according to The New York Times, planning to air TV ads.

So are those same Republicans now crowing Romney made the right call? Not exactly. 

The Des Moines Register's new poll showing Mitt Romney and Herman Cain tied for first place in Iowa confirms what the CBS/National Journal reporters embedded with the campaigns have been hearing on the ground for a couple of weeks now: Iowa Republicans are giving former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney a chance to win their hearts, even though the religious conservatives who dominate the state's first-in-the-nation caucus don't care for him on the issues and may not be entirely comfortable with his Mormonism. The reason?  Romney's electability argument is resonating.

More than ideological purity, it seems, many Iowa Republicans want someone who can beat President Obama, and Romney so far has made the most plausible argument for why he is that guy. Until recently, Romney spent little of his time or his considerable financial resources in Iowa, figuring that his best shot at an early-primary victory was with New Hampshire's more moderate and independent voters.

But the poll also contains some political intelligence that bodes poorly for a Romney win in Iowa.

"When Gov. Perry entered the presidential race, Iowa's renewable fuels community said it would keep an open mind and not hold past actions by the Governor in his state role against him,'' said Walt Wendland, president of the association. "But we also noted it would be important going forward to determine if Perry is running for President of the United States or President of Texas.  Unfortunately, that answer seems to be leaning heaving toward Texas.''

While the ethanol issue doesn't seem to have the same potency in presidential politics that it used to, Perry needs all the friends he can get in Iowa, where Mitt Romney and Herman Cain lead the polls.

One reason the Republican presidential contest has been so unusually volatile is that it's become two races running along parallel but very distinct tracks. One of those races seems to be settling down, steadily if slowly. The other still appears perched on an earthquake fault. If that dynamic persists,  former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will remain the favorite for the nomination- even though a significant proportion of the party remains resistant to choosing him.

The evolution of the GOP contest into two distinct races becomes apparent when looking at the long trend in public opinion polling. In the twelve national CNN/ORC surveys about the race conducted since January four different candidates have held or shared the national lead: ex-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and businessman Donald Trump (neither of whom actually entered the race), Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Other national polls this year have recorded leads for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and more recently businessman Herman Cain.